Modern fantasy has largely repurposed elves. Elves used to be tricksters feared for their magic and otherworldliness, but especially in fantasy gaming elves have become ancient and noble creatures of high culture and learning. While thinking about the background of my gaming world I decided to adopt a more traditional approach to elves, and so I’ve come up with the following supposition:

Suppose the elves are not a race apart from humans, and suppose they are not ancient. Suppose the faeries left the feywild and entered the world of man, enslaving and entrancing it. Suppose they bred with humans and created the elves (and thus there are no half-elves). Suppose the humans and some of the elves rebelled and fought and drove the faeries back to the feywild (ie. were thrown out of the garden). Suppose there is a barrier, erected at great cost, and planar magic is dangerous and forbidden to most. Suppose some of the elves remain but are not exactly on great terms with the humans, and some of the elves get along fine.

The elves are a relatively new race, one trying to find its place in the world. They have magic in their blood and, like every other race, have as much potential for good as they do for evil. Still, there is something unsettling about them to most of my world’s inhabitants, and they will offer numerous roleplaying and plot opportunities. Furthermore, planar magic and the feywild will be an epic challenge and bring in traditional high fantasy stakes.

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Actually they were always both. “Elves” are derived from the old pre-christian deities of europe, who survived in folklore since those times mostly(but not exclusively) by the trickster types. Some of the human sized and more regal kinds also survived in folk lore. I realized this after reading some books on old Celtic myth(which admittedly was haphazard and fragmentary in what’s left) and norse myth; both belief systems had things that are more or less much what we would consider to be both types. So it’s not really that the current perspective is wrong, but rather it’s not comprehensive-likewise the opposite perspective that elves are only small tricksters is also equally but differently incomplete. You can fit both kinds in; all because Humans exsist doesn’t mean that say, monkeys don’t fit in the world because of some “too many primates” rule, and likewise tall elves don’t negate short tricksters. But tall elves could be less regal and more wild or even crazy. I think what people hate is the stuffiness, really.